When Long Beach’s iconic record store Fingerprints began planning festivities for this year’s Record Store Day, they realized they couldn’t fit all the in-stores, sales and special events they wanted into a short 24-hour span.
But instead of canceling the nationally-renowned holiday created by and exclusively for independent record stores, the East Village shop decided to stretch out the event by turning all of April into Record Store Month.
“There’s so many different things coming out, and so much promotion going on and so much build up for one day that [owner Rand Foster] just thought we could do a month full of stuff and people will be more excited about it,” Fingerprints Programs Coordinator Meagan Blome says.
In addition to hosting Record Store Day activities on the day of, Fingerprints will offer special sales — including deals on books, vinyl, t-shirts and CDs — throughout the whole month. Sales will be announced daily through Fingerprints’ Facebook page.
Other Record Store Month events, like a scavenger hunt, an outdoor movie screening and multiple listening parties, are also in the works, Foster said. And for in-store performances, Fingerprints pulled together multiple show stoppers with groups like Kitten, Wild Belle and Feeding People.
Created in 2007, Record Store Day celebrates independent record shops through releases exclusive to that day. Artists like The White Stripes, The Black Keys, David Bowie, Randy Travis, Pink Floyd, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The XX, Cypress Hill and many more have announced rare vinyl releases for this year.
The shop will open at 6AM on April 20, making it one of the first locations to unlock their doors on the West Coast. Foster said doughnuts and coffee will be offered to the many eager record collectors who arrive early or decide to sleep outside the shop’s doors the night before.
“You come here in the morning and you have a line around the corner,” Foster says.
Fingerprints will also host a lineup of performances on April 20, including surf-rock influenced Best Coast, ‘90s superstars Jimmy Eat World, former Wings and Grammy-award winning guitarist Laurence Juber and late ‘80s punk rock pioneer Mike Watt — who will close out the day with his group the Secondmen.
To follow up last year’s lineup of folk singer/songwriter M. Ward; Beach Boys guitarist and vocalist Al Jardine; and ‘90s alternative group World Party, Foster said he wanted to gather up another group of bands that create a cross-section of various generations.
“That was very much a consideration this year: let’s find something to appeal to kind of a broad spectrum,” Foster says.
Best Coast will kick the live music off at 1PM, with Jimmy Eat World following at 4PM, Juber performs at 6PM and Mike Watt and the Second Men will put on their show at 8PM.
Foster says the Jimmy Eat World performance has already been sold out and Best Coast only has few spots left. A preorder of the respected artists’ Record Store Day release is required for Best Coast and Mike Watt, but Juber’s performance is free with RSVP.
{loadposition latestlife}Bringing the community together to share an experience is one of the reasons why Foster said Record Store Day is important for music aficionados.
Other local shops participating in Record Store Day include Dyzzy On Vynyl, located at 3004 E. Seventh St. and Durty Mick Records, located at 403 E. Third St. Durty Mick will also open their doors at 6AM and have evening performances by hardcore punk band Death March and Americana folk-influenced Amigo the Devil.
“Record stores haven’t gone away, there’s less of us, but that happened 15 years ago with the big bosses,” he said. “It’s coming back now, and that’s exciting.”
Feeding People play tonight (April 5) at 7PM. Visit Fingerprints on Facebook daily for developing details and news on Record Store Month sales and performances. Fingerprints is located at 420 E. 4th St.
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